Well, That Didn't Take Long

What was I saying about being too distracted by Christmas stuff to be able to get riled about goings-on in the real world? Yeah, well, that's over. Obama has made his pick for inauguration invocation-giver. And he picked evangelical megachurch purpose-driven pastor Rick Warren. Rick Assassinate-Ahmedinejad-And-Abortion-Is-Equivalent-To-The-Holocaust-And-Oh-By-The-Way-Gay-Marriage-Means-Ministers-Will-Go-To-Jail Warren.

Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his affable personality and his church's engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself is one of tone rather than substance. He has recently compared marriage by loving and committed same-sex couples to incest and pedophilia. He has repeated the Religious Right's big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion.

Neat! We voted for change and got an inauguration speaker that couldn't be much Bushier unless he grows the goatee out into a full neckbeard!

Fuck. We've been looking at the Cabinet, we've been looking at the Blagojevich connections or not, we've been looking at the goddamn puppy possibilities and feeling pretty good. Should we continue to focus on the Education pick and avert our eyes from Warren because he just doesn't matter, or does Pastor Prop 8 matter just a little more than that?

Maybe this is simply a craven ploy, a right-wing trump card played to finally negate the Rev. Wright card the Republicans led (and somehow slipped back into their hands to play again and again). After all, most of us who voted for Obama managed to roll our eyes and shrug Wright's histrionics away; shouldn't we do the same with Warren? I do not think so. I do not think so because this was a calculated move to create an association for some incomprehensible political end rather than failing to sever an existing long-term association. I do not think so because Rick Warren does a hell of a lot more to foment bigotry and operationalize it in law than Jeremiah Wright could ever dream of. Wright is annoying. Warren is fucking dangerous.

Or maybe it's not craven politics at all and Rick Warren is the guy Barack Obama really thinks is the best to speak to the nation's soul on the occasion of his inauguration. And that one I don't want to think about at all. I can handle him being an unapologetic politician. I can't handle him being the kind of douchebag who thinks Rick Warren should be pastor-in-chief for even ten minutes.

More howling may be found at FireDogLake, Atrios, Americablog, Washington Monthly, Shakesville, Digby, Bilerico, and Pam's House Blend.

Thanks, Top!Secret G-woman!